Missing whooping crane found 5 days after straying from migration group

Friday

Nov 30, 2007 at 12:01 AMNov 30, 2007 at 6:21 AM

The whooping crane that got lost while on a guided migration from Wisconsin to Florida was found Wednesday in Kentucky after five days of being on his own.

The whooping crane that got lost while on a guided migration from Wisconsin to Florida was found Wednesday in Kentucky after five days of being on his own.

The crane dropped out of the flock Nov. 23 during a rough flight from Indiana to Kentucky. It is not unusual for cranes to leave the flight led by Operation Migration
ultralite pilots, but they generally are found and coaxed back to the flock within hours.

The crane numbered 733 had whooping crane fans across the nation worried.

No. 733 is one of 17 young whooping cranes that were hatched in captivity and have no one to teach them to fly south for the winter. Operation Migration pilots take a “class” of them to Florida every fall, and the birds return to Wisconsin on their own in spring. The goal is to establish a wild flock that will be large enough to reproduce on its own and continue the Wisconsin-Florida migration pattern.

There are fewer than 500 whooping cranes in the world.

The crew stayed two nights in Winnebago County early this month.

No. 733 was found after numerous sightings in Kentucky and Indiana. The Web site operationmigration.org reported that the crane was captured by costumed handlers in a cow pasture near Big Spring, Ky.

The 17 cranes and Operation Migration crew on Thursday were in Washington County, Ky., waiting for weather conditions that will allow them to resume their flight to central Florida.